're at a time in your life where you have an enormous amount of creative energy, and there's no way to express it. that's why a lot of people get into drinking or drugs or whatever. ben and i talked about trying to channel it somewhere, and the script was a good way to do that, because it kept us focused and it captured that creative energy which otherwise would have just been frittered away in some other way. so in one sense it was about control then. now if there's an idea i think is really good and i feel like i can write it, then i'll do it. but i don't know that that's about control, necessarily. tavis: i don't know how to frame this question, but i'm going to ask it and you'll do justice to it, i'm certain. given that you started out as a writer, to your point, because you couldn't get hired at first, what kind of freedom, liberty, i'm trying to find the right word here, has the writing, knowing that you can write, knowing that you can write really good stuff, knowing that the good stuff you write can be made, so that you're not ever stuck in this actor's lane, if i can use that -- you s